The Halo eBook

“What an eye for beauty you have!” cut
short Madame Chalumeau ruthlessly. “Well,
Jacques, I must now make myself presentable and go
to the Rue d’Argentin. Berton will no doubt
be very proud to have a lady in his inn—­although
many English people stop there. It is curious,”
she added, putting her plate on his and carrying them
to a distant table, “what an interest ces
Anglais take in le Conquerant. As an enemy,
one who conquered their country, one would think they
would dislike his memory, but they do not. Very
generous of them, I always think.”

CHAPTER THREE

Joyselle’s party arrived at Falaise the next
evening, and leaving Brigit at the inn in the Rue
d’Argentin, the others drove on to old M. Joyselle’s
house in the Rue Victor Hugo.

Brigit was very tired and glad to rest, for the day’s
journey had been long, and Joyselle’s interest
in her interest in his country had taken the form
of a restless desire to have her see everything possible
from both sides of the compartment. For hours,
therefore, she had been springing from one window
to another, admiring everything to which he pointed,
in a mad attempt to satisfy his pride in ici-bas.

Her coming at all had been entirely his idea, and
her faint refusals he had laughed to scorn, easily
enlisting Theo, and, with a trifle more difficulty,
his wife, to his cause.

“Of course you will go with us,” he had
cried, beaming with joy and tossing Papillon nearly
to the ceiling as some outlet for his feelings, “and
it will be glorious; and think of the ecstasy of my
old people and the rest!”

“Remember, Victor—­they are simple
people,” Felicite had ventured, but he had laughed
again.

“And so is she! They are peasants, and
she is a great lady. Ca se comprend. But extremes
meet, and Brigit has none of the British middle-class
snobbism. It is well that she should see the people
from whom we come. She shall go with us.”

And she had come.

Things had gone very well of late, and as she lay
on her narrow bed resting and waiting for Theo to
fetch her, she reviewed the events that had occurred
since her great quarrel with Victor, and drew a deep
breath of satisfaction at the state of affairs.

She and Joyselle, both of them remembering the horror
of the quarrel, had been exceptionally gentle to each
other, and as so often happens when a situation is
apparently unbearable, it had suddenly become quite
smooth and pleasant. Restraining himself from
demonstrativeness, Joyselle had been able to keep
his emotions well in hand, and the tacit avoidance
of tetes-a-tete had also proved most helpful.

Felicite’s innocent interpretation of their
feelings had gone far, too, towards quieting those
feelings almost to her conception of them. There
were times, Brigit had seen, not without amusement,
when Victor had nearly felt for her the paternal solicitude
his wife believed him to feel, and even though she
smiled at this susceptibility to impression in him,
the girl more than once caught herself semi-unconsciously
playing the role of youthful hero-worshipper
cast for her by the older woman.